Former US President George HW Bush is in hospital suffering breathing problems

Oldest living former US president George HW Bush is in hospital after suffering breathing problems over the weekend. According to a family spokesperson, the 92 year old is receiving treatment at the Houston Methodist after being taken there on Saturday.

Family spokesperson Jim McCrath said that he was responding well to treatment and that his medical team were please with his progress. He is expected to be released soon. Mr Bush is the father of former president George W Bush and the former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who was up for nomination for the 2016 Republican presidential candidate.

Republican Mr Bush snr was vice president while Ronald Reagan held office, before being elected himself in 1988. He has been in ill health in recent years. He has used a wheelchair for a number of years and was taken to hospital twice during 2014 for pneumonia and breathing problems, spending seven weeks there on the first occasion. He was also hospitalised in 2015 after breaking a bone when he suffered a fall at his house in Maine.

Public appearances

He is not often seen in public but did make an appearance in 2015, when he was in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace. He tossed out the first pitch for the Houston Astros team’s playoff game against the Kansas City Royals. Last year, he went to a ceremony at the library at Texas A&M University to mark the 75th anniversary of the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor.

Born in 1924, President George HW Bush was the 41st US president. After the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, he decided to delay going to college and enlisted in the US Navy on his 18th birthday, becoming the youngest aviator in the force at the time. After World War Two ended, he went to Yale University before going into the oil business and becoming a millionaire by the time he turned 40.